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Food for thought
Oct. 28th, 2011 11:28 amFood for thought. Inspired by this.
Pop tarts will keep on a shelf darned near indefinitely. In contrast, fresh fruit spoils after a week, if you're lucky. Same with most meat and fresh vegetables. Bread's slightly better, but still a crap shoot; I've had some loaves of bread last me for weeks without spoiling while others were moldy after six days. I'm not sure what's going on there, frankly. And milk/dairy lasts... maybe a month, if you're careful about sell-by dates and can store it properly. (Not accounting for freezing, here. Freezing helps, if you have the means.)
Anyway. Say you're missing some of the conveniences that you've thus far enjoyed in life. You don't have a reliable fridge/freezer, or the one you have is shared and you have little space. Maybe you don't have a reliable stove. Maybe you don't have a lot of free time - maybe you work two jobs to make ends meet and still have to feed a family. Maybe you don't have a car to drive back and forth from the store; you have to take a bus or get a ride from a friend, if you're lucky, and if you're not you walk. (I've had to rely on walking to and from a store for all of my groceries before; it was not fun. And that was with a grocery store that was only a little over a mile away!) Or maybe you don't have a home at all.
My point is, under those circumstances... which of the above foods is going to look more attractive to you? The "healthy" or "real" food that you might not be able to store properly, that you might not have the resources, time, energy or any of the above to cook, and that will more likely spoil before you can actually eat all of it? Or the pop tart, which keeps forever in a little box on a shelf, can be eaten out of hand without any trouble, and will keep you alive and nourish you enough to get you through a few hours?
It's not enough to just tell people that pop tarts aren't good for you and that they should buy "real food." Education is important - it's a good idea to teach people how to cook and keep a kitchen, because so many of us just don't know - but it can't make up for lack of time, proper cookware, or proper storage and facilities. It is possible to eat healthier on a lower income if you have the knowhow and the proper tools, but it has to be taught with the person's individual situation in mind; there's no one-size-fits-all solution. And it's too easy to get stuck in that way of thinking - "Well, X worked for me, so it'll work for everyone." Sure, you can get cheap fresh produce in bulk - IF you have a freezer, or a lot of people to help eat it. Otherwise half of it will spoil, and no matter how cheap it was, if it goes bad before you can eat it, you've wasted the money you spent. Sure, you can get to a store that sells decent food for a decent price - IF such a store exists within a distance that you can reasonably travel to, then travel back while carrying said food. Tall order, if you don't have a car and the store isn't right down the street - if it's on the other side of town, well, some towns have decent mass transit but other towns don't. For so many people, fresh food is a luxury, for those and so many other reasons.
I'm not saying that eating as healthily as possible isn't a good thing, mind you. I'm a strong believer! If you have a choice between an apple and a pop tart to eat today, and choosing one over the other isn't going to cause any big problems, I would say to go for the apple every time. But I just want people to acknowledge that it just isn't always possible to eat the way that the guidelines tell us we should eat. There's no way to find solutions if people can't recognize the problem.
Pop tarts will keep on a shelf darned near indefinitely. In contrast, fresh fruit spoils after a week, if you're lucky. Same with most meat and fresh vegetables. Bread's slightly better, but still a crap shoot; I've had some loaves of bread last me for weeks without spoiling while others were moldy after six days. I'm not sure what's going on there, frankly. And milk/dairy lasts... maybe a month, if you're careful about sell-by dates and can store it properly. (Not accounting for freezing, here. Freezing helps, if you have the means.)
Anyway. Say you're missing some of the conveniences that you've thus far enjoyed in life. You don't have a reliable fridge/freezer, or the one you have is shared and you have little space. Maybe you don't have a reliable stove. Maybe you don't have a lot of free time - maybe you work two jobs to make ends meet and still have to feed a family. Maybe you don't have a car to drive back and forth from the store; you have to take a bus or get a ride from a friend, if you're lucky, and if you're not you walk. (I've had to rely on walking to and from a store for all of my groceries before; it was not fun. And that was with a grocery store that was only a little over a mile away!) Or maybe you don't have a home at all.
My point is, under those circumstances... which of the above foods is going to look more attractive to you? The "healthy" or "real" food that you might not be able to store properly, that you might not have the resources, time, energy or any of the above to cook, and that will more likely spoil before you can actually eat all of it? Or the pop tart, which keeps forever in a little box on a shelf, can be eaten out of hand without any trouble, and will keep you alive and nourish you enough to get you through a few hours?
It's not enough to just tell people that pop tarts aren't good for you and that they should buy "real food." Education is important - it's a good idea to teach people how to cook and keep a kitchen, because so many of us just don't know - but it can't make up for lack of time, proper cookware, or proper storage and facilities. It is possible to eat healthier on a lower income if you have the knowhow and the proper tools, but it has to be taught with the person's individual situation in mind; there's no one-size-fits-all solution. And it's too easy to get stuck in that way of thinking - "Well, X worked for me, so it'll work for everyone." Sure, you can get cheap fresh produce in bulk - IF you have a freezer, or a lot of people to help eat it. Otherwise half of it will spoil, and no matter how cheap it was, if it goes bad before you can eat it, you've wasted the money you spent. Sure, you can get to a store that sells decent food for a decent price - IF such a store exists within a distance that you can reasonably travel to, then travel back while carrying said food. Tall order, if you don't have a car and the store isn't right down the street - if it's on the other side of town, well, some towns have decent mass transit but other towns don't. For so many people, fresh food is a luxury, for those and so many other reasons.
I'm not saying that eating as healthily as possible isn't a good thing, mind you. I'm a strong believer! If you have a choice between an apple and a pop tart to eat today, and choosing one over the other isn't going to cause any big problems, I would say to go for the apple every time. But I just want people to acknowledge that it just isn't always possible to eat the way that the guidelines tell us we should eat. There's no way to find solutions if people can't recognize the problem.
